A badly burned body found on the floor of a River North parking garage early Tuesday has been identified as a 60-year-old real estate attorney, officials said. Louis S. Cohen, 60, was of the 200 block of Ivy Lane in Highland Park, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy Wednesday was pending and did not determine a cause and manner for Cohen’s death, the office said. Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, police and fire crews responded to a fire in the 11th floor of a parking garage in the 300 block of North LaSalle Drive and found...

The AP reported last week that "U.S. officials from the State Department and White House plan to continue a series of secret meetings with Taliban representatives." The AP report went on to say that "one member of the Taliban negotiating team has been publicly identified as Tayyab Aga [Agha], an emissary of Pakistan-based Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar." But sadly, and ironically, while the Obama administration is desperately reaching out to Mullah Omar, Mr. Omar is strengthening his resolve to kill US troops and to wreak havoc upon Afghanistan. From the Times of India: Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan...

As if the Taliban wasn’t bad enough. KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday confirmed a meeting with the Haqqani insurgent group, as signs of a dialogue between the United States and rebels continue to grow. ‘We had one meeting with Haqqani network,’ Marc Grossman told a news conference in Kabul. His remarks come after US and the Taliban militants confirmed preliminary talks for opening an liaison office for the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha – increasing speculation of an end to the decade-long bloody insurgency in this war-torn country.

The UK’s Sunday Times recently broke the story of an FBI whistleblower kept from speaking publicly about a State Department official suspected of selling nuclear secrets. Annie Jacobsen digs a bit deeper into this shadowy tale and wonders why American media outlets have greeted the revelations with stunning silence. Two weeks ago, the London Sunday Times broke an exclusive story about FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. For five years, the U.S. government has prevented Edmonds from speaking publicly on what she knows, claiming State Secrets Privilege. The Times got the exclusive on the story, eerily titled “For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear...

Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen Are PhDs and Middle East Experts Who Did Some Lobbying. They Thought They Were Doing What Washington Insiders Always Do. Thomas O’Donnell didn’t reveal his job when he phoned Keith Weissman in 2004 and got the policy analyst’s wife. He says he didn’t want to scare her. When Weissman returned the call and found out O’Donnell was an FBI agent, his first reaction was to attempt a joke: “What did I do?” “I’m sure you didn’t do anything,” O’Donnell told him. He wanted to meet that day, for five or ten minutes, and get Weissman’s...

Some fascinating details on the CIA leak affair are coming out in the courtroom of the Lewis Libby trial. This morning, for example, we got a better picture of why former ambassador Joseph Wilson decided to go public with his story, publishing an op-ed in the New York Times in July 2003. Prior to that time, Wilson had been talking to reporters on background — his name had not been linked to the whole Niger/yellowcake/16 words affair. But Wilson has said in a number of interviews that after watching the appearance of then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on "Meet the...

You want a leak case? Here's a leak case: socialite-actress-producer Zeta Graff suing socialite-actress Paris Hilton for libel and slander for Hilton's alleged leak to Page Six of the New York Post. Hilton allegedly falsely reported that Graff had gone "berserk" at a London nightclub when she saw Hilton dancing to "Copacabana" with Graff's ex-boyfriend Paris Latsis. Hilton allegedly also reported that Graff tried to rip a $4 million diamond necklace off Hilton's neck, and that Graff, according to Hilton, is allegedly "a woman who is older and losing her looks, and she's alone. She's very unhappy." Graff is in...

DUBAI DUETS Late Friday, Department of Justice lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel were attempting to determine if former President Bill Clinton had registered as an "Agent of a Foreign Principal." Federal statute requires that anyone -- even a former President -- doing political or public affairs work on behalf of a foreign country, agency or official must register with the Department, and essentially update his status every six months. It was not clear the Clinton had done so. If his status is less clear, here is what we do know: If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not know...

THE STATE DEPARTMENT PLOT THICKENS [John Podhoretz] Time Magazine has a new story about the revelation of Valerie Plame's name -- a story that, despite Time's own bizarre spin, reinforces the claim that Karl Rove and others learned that Joseph Wilson was married to a CIA operative from the media. "As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration," writes Massimo Calabresi. Later, he...

BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 30 - A senior American diplomat expressed frustration on Thursday that Serbia had yet to turn over a leading war crimes suspect months after the election of a new president who had promised "full cooperation" with the international tribunal at The Hague. Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said the Serbian government had made no progress toward arresting the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Gen. Ratko Mladic. General Mladic was indicted in 1995 on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from his actions during the 1992-95 conflict...

<p>WASHINGTON - It was both an auspicious and ominous way to begin the week: Auspicious because of President George Bush's resolute demand that Saddam Hussein and his sons leave Iraq. There were also ominous noises from his predecessor in the White House, Bill Clinton, who bared not only his antagonism to the president but his horror at envisioning a strong America.</p>

<p>The U.N. administration has overstayed its welcome in Kosovo and now is hurting the province's ability to attract investment, fight corruption and adopt needed economic reforms, Kosovo's prime minister said in an interview yesterday.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi said the inability of the international community to provide an "ultimate vision" for Kosovo "has prolonged the uncertainty about what we can do and where we are heading."</p>

Interview by European Journalists Marc Grossman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Washington, DC April 17, 2003 (11:00 a.m. EDT) QUESTION: What's the meaning of the trip, which has been announced by Secretary Powell to Damascus? Do you know where it will happen and what will be the exact purpose of this trip? UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: First, the Secretary hasn't yet decided on exact dates or where else he might go. But as he said yesterday, he wants to go and have a straightforward, direct conversation with the Syrian leadership. And since we've been having this conversation over a period of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Details emerged on Friday of a tough U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution that would give Iraq less than six weeks to disclose any weapons of mass destruction and hold the threat of military action over its head. President Bush, facing resistance in Europe and at home to his avowed policy of forcing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power, repeated his willingness to act without U.N. approval if necessary. "Our last choice is to commit our troops to harm's way, but if we have to, to defend our freedoms, if we have to, the United States will lead a...